Carlo Ancelotti hailed the contributions of Karim Benzema and Luka Modric after the veterans helped Real Madrid complete a dramatic comeback against PSG.
Both Benzema and Modric were in inspired form in the Champions League second leg clash with Paris Saint-Germain, with the former bagging himself a brilliant second half hat-trick and the latter running the show in midfield.
Speaking after the remarkable 3-1 win over a star-laden PSG team, Ancelotti was quick to single out the two for making ‘valuable contributions’ during his post-match press conference:
“They get better every day. I’m lucky enough to have them playing for this club. Karim got an injury and we struggled, but he’s back now,” Ancelotti said.
“And Luka is still immense in every game. He’s doing a fantastic job wherever he plays, on the left, sometimes on the right, he’s making extremely valuable contributions.”
Ancelotti also revealed that the ‘magic of the stadium’ gave his side the extra energy needed to complete the comeback in the final half an hour of the game, saying: “How can it be explained?
“Well, we had to dig in a lot, but we held on. In the first half it was difficult to win the ball back, we tried to press them and some good pressing by Karim gave us the chance to score the first.
“Then the magic of this stadium and these fans appeared and that gave us the energy and allowed us to finish off the opposition, because there was only one team on the pitch in the final 30 minutes.”
Ancelotti was then asked about Los Blancos’ Champions League aspirations, and he added: “As I said right at the start of the competition, if we’re in good shape, we can compete against any team. After the first leg it looked as though we didn’t have much chance of qualifying because we’d played really poorly and PSG looked good.
“Things changed because we played much better in this game and showed real character. Luck has a part to play, of course. We were fortunate with the first goal but I think we deserved that bit of luck we had with the opener.”
